with rushes. A wall of turfs (for fuel) served as a partition for the bed-room, furnished with a bed of heath and dried rushes in one corner. The furniture was such as necessity dictated: some loose stones formed the grate; two large ones, with a plank across, supplied the place of chairs; a kettle, with a back-stone for baking oaten cakes, answered every culinary purpose; and two coarse carthen pitchers stood by for the preserving or carrying water and dodgriafel, the usual beverage of the family. On our making some enquiries respecting the neighbourhood, she expressed a wish that her husband had been at home, as she would have been able to have given us the desired information. "You have a husband then?" said I. With a smile of approbation upon her face, she replied, Yes, blessed be God, he and his father before him were born here; and she was as happy as any of the great folk, for that he loved her and his children, and worked very hard, and they wanted for nothing he could get for them: he was a peater, digging peat in the adjoining moors, and carrying it for sale.' Asking what wages he might get; she said, that depended upon the weather; sometimes six shillings in the week, and sometimes three or four that they had a little cow on the lease, and a few sheep upon the hills.' What assistance do you give?” said I. She observed, shaking her head at the time, that she could do but very little; her work was knitting, at which, with the assistance of her two eldest girls, one five and the other seven, if not interrupted, they could earn five pence a day; but that the younger children engrossed much of her time; and she soon expected another. Now, my friend, recollect what they had to maintain a family of seven; a man, his wife, and five children! The mother looked in health, and the children, though thinly clad, ruddy and smiling. Want, alas! Has o'er their little limbs its liv'ry hung In many a tatter'd fold; yet still those limbs. Are shapely their rude locks start from their brow, Yet on that open brow, its dearest throne, Sits sweet simplicity." Mason's Garden. Indeed, there did not appear any thing like the misery and filth observable in the dwelling of many of the English poor, whose weekly income is four or six times as great. Though the floor was formed of the native rock, it was regularly swept with a besom made of segs, bound with a band of the same; and the fuel was as regularly piled as bread on a baker's shelves. All appeared in order; but the air of content apparent in the looks of this humble peasant and her family, put us all justly to the blush and a series of superior blessings, too often abused or too often forgotten, rushed instantly upon our recollection, at witnessing so much reason and gratitude in the habitation of 6 THOUGHTS ON MATT. XIII. 589 penury. If we had reason to be thankful that we were not constrained thus to earn our bread, and live secluded amidst these mountains, we had still more so for the education which had given us greater degrees of knowledge, and, if not lost to ourselves, of greater happiness. We were anxious to know in what school she had learned so important a lesson. Sir,' says she, we regularly go to yonder church, pointing to the hills; and, if it be bad weather, we stop at Mr. Jones's meeting by the way, where we hear much the same things: That all we have is the gift of God; and that, if we possess health and strength, we possess more than we deserve. If sensible of our utter unworthiness, we sincerely believe in the Redeemer, and, following his example, perform the duties enjoined us in his gospel, relying for assistance on his Holy Spirit; conducting ourselves with propriety in that state of life in which it has pleased God to call us, we shall, after death, change this poor uncertain life for a better, where we shall be for ever happy; and the frequent interment of our friends and neighbours, informs us daily this event can be at no great_distance.'-Astonished at so much good sense and piety, where I so little expected to find it, I exclaimed, "Just step into this humble cot, ye rich and gay, and learn that happiness ye so earnestly seek in vain; a happiness neither wealth nor pleasure can bestow." THOUGHTS ON MATT. XIII. 57. And they were offended in him. FORTITUDE, patience, meekness, and charity, were distinguishable features in our Lord's life when on earth; but the characteristic trait was mercy! "I am not sent (said the mild Jesus) but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." His compassion was so boundless; his philanthropy so extensive, and his mercy so infinite, that the multitude wondered when they perceived the dumb speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame walk, and the blind to see:-Yet, "they were offended at him!"By precept, he enforced the duty of love to our brethren; by example he taught the nobler one of love to our enemies.. Faultless himself, yet had he compassion on the guilty multitude. Pure and holy in his own person, yet he ate with publicans and sinners, and declared he came "not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance:" that he would have mercy and not sacrifice: "Yet were they offended in him!" The divine doctrines he taught, his beneficent life, the holy axioms he inculcated, and his agonizing death,— are they 1 not all on record? Yet, men to this day are offended in him! the men of the world are offended; the fascinating pleasures of this life are to them irresistible; the luxurious voluptuary can ill think of parting with all to follow the lowly Jesus; - the votary of business thinks it much too hard a lesson to learn to give his cloke, if his coat is taken from him; and all concur in saying, "We will not have this man to reign over us!" But, alas! these are not the only people offended in him. The professing Christian too often feels his repining heart offended at his Creator! the calumnics of the world, the afflictions of his body, the lowliness of his situation, the distresses of his family, and, above all, the conflicts he experiences in parting with darling sins, which are as the cutting off an hand, or the plucking out of an eye, causes him to exclaim, "All these things are against me. ." He remembers not the promise of his Saviour, "Fear them not, therefore, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, nor hid, that shall not be known." In his gloomy moments he looks not beyond the present scene, where all is cold, dark, and cheerless, and where his share in life is gall and bitterness. Even David, the man after God's own heart, was offended at him when he was envious at the foolish; when he saw the prosperity of the wicked; when he exclaimed, "Lo, these are ungodly, these prosper in the world, and these have riches in possession;" and added, "Then have I cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. All the day long have I been punished; and chastened every morning.' And Oh heart! base and ungrateful, how often hast thou been offended at the frowning providences of thy God, when, to thy shallow reason, his procedure appeared inscrutable, and his ways were past thy finding out! But it behoves thee, and all, to remember that his Spirit will not always strive with man's ingratitude. Though his mercy permits the barren fig-tree to stand another year, yet a time is hastening when, if it bring not forth fruit meet for repentance, it will be cut down, and no longer suffered to cumber the ground." Awake then, O sleeper, no longer procrastinate!-seize the now ere 'tis past!-the present moment only is thy own! Death, perhaps, has raised his dart to strike thee from the land of the living. Embrace the offers of pardoning grace, and remain not offended at him who left the realms of light to suffer, to bleed, to die, that your soul might not perish. Does such love merit no return but slight and indifference? O! recollect, That in this world Christ is the friend of sinners, but in the world to come, their Judge! There will their prayers be useless, their tears of no avail, their repentance disregarded; and unspeakably miserable will be the wretches with whom the Lamb of God shall be offended. SOPHIA T COMMENTARY ON GEN. III. 22. To the Editor. Rev Sir, Lately perusing the Works of the late Rev. Robert Riccaltoun, of Hobkirk, in Scotland, the following Comment, on a very important passage of Scripture, very forcibly struck my mind; and as it may tend to throw light upon that part of the word of God, should be glad to see it inserted in your. valuable Work. I am, Sir, yours, &c. NEREUS. "FROM the account we have of the manner in which Man was driven out of Paradise, it appears rather to have been a work of mercy than judgment. The speech is introduced with," Behold, the man is become as one of us ;" which has more of the air of compassion than irony, as some have construed it; and if the following words are justly rendered, it was an act of real kindness, that the man might not fall again into the same snare, and run into a new instance of rebellion, by attempting to eat of the tree of life, that he might evade the sentence appointing him to return to the dust from which he was taken. For securing against such a pernicious event, a guard of angels was set, to keep him out. "But indeed the original words of Moses will, without any violence done them, admit of a very different construction. It is well known, that the tree of life, from the beginning to the end of the record, is made use of, to signify what the tree which bore that name in Paradise, was but a figure or emblem of, viz. the means which God hath chosen to convey eternal life to dead sinners of mankind. It is observed by those skilled in the language, that the particle which we render lest, and which gives the turn to the whole sentence, may be properly rendered, so as to put man in a possibility of recovering life, as was done by the intimation already made in the serpent's curse; and what follows of setting up the cherubims in the east of the garden, seems, all things considered, to determine their intention to be, not to keep man from, but to guide them into, the way of the tree of life. This will appear more than probable, when we reflect on the purpose which the cherubims answered in the tabernacle and temple: they were appendages of the mercy-seat, and Jehovah inhabited them, or dwelt between them. It was, without all question, an emblematic exhibition of the God of grace dwelling among the people for whom Moses wrote, who, for any thing that appears, had no other notion of cherubim; and when they were told of God's having placed them on the east of Eden, they could not help concluding, that he had pitched on that as the place in which he chose to manifest himself, and where the wor shippers were to make their approaches to him; which is yet further confirmed by this, that we find the face or faces of Jehovali, mentioned as some place from whence Cain was, or at least was afraid of being driven out. What is added of a flaming sword, in our translation, is only fire, and another word which signifies any weapon of slaughter; which may possibly be a short kint of the institution of the sacrifice to be offered there; and I believe, on the whole, it will be found very nearly to resemble the prophet Ezekiel's fire infolding itself in his vision of the glory of God in the cherubim, rather than a flaming sword, turning every way at one part of the garden, while all the rest was left open."- Vol. ii. puge 88, 89, 90, ILLUSTRATION OF SCRIPTURE. If they shall say to you, Behold, he is in the desart, go not forth; behold he is in the secret chambers, believe it not. Matt. xxiv. 26. Dr. Owen's remarks on this passage are so curious as to deserve our attention. Whether he has given the genuine mind of the Spirit in these words, we leave to the decision of every one who studies the Scriptures, to know what God the Lord speaks to us in them; for, notwithstanding the high estimation which Dr. Owen enjoys as an expositor, we are charged to call no man Father. It is not the wilderness of a low, persecuted, inglorious condi tion in the world, of which Christ speaks here; for Jesus himself foretells, That his church shall be in the wilderness; and where the church is, there is he; for he is with them always, even to the end of the world. Nor by secret places doth he mean those upper rooins where the first Christians met for security; for there they enjoyed the presence of Christ for some ages. But Christ here foretells the false and superstitious ways by which some would seek him: "If they say to you, he is in the wil derness," &c. Here he predicts the superstitions of the monks, anchorites, or hermits, who would retire to desarts and solitary places, where they would pretend to great intercourse with Christ. Nothing was more common in those days than to say, "Christ is in the desart, conversing with the monks." Believe them not, go not forth to them. Neither, if they shall say to you, He is ( Tap) in the secret chambers. There is, or I am deceived, a deep and mysterious instruction in these words: Tauna, signifies those secret places in a house where bread, wine, and cakes of all sorts were stored up. What pretence then could - there be for saying, Christ was in such a place? Why, there ensued so great a pretence thereof, and so great a superstition there. on, that it became divine wisdom to foresce, and divine goodness |